


double-headed eagle

by 90kg_anvil



Series: 3H Kinkmeme Fills [4]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Black Eagle Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned Those Who Slither In The Dark (Fire Emblem), Mild Gore, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Trans Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:14:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29299476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/90kg_anvil/pseuds/90kg_anvil
Summary: Originally written for and posted on the 3H Kinkmeme.Byleth is surprised to meet Dimitri von Hresvelg.Edelgard on her own was a powerful presence, a charismatic force. The Hresvelg siblings together, however, are unnerving, to say the least. White hair, ever-present gloves and gauntlets, identical polite smiles. Aloof, judgmental, often near each other like their survival depends on it. Something about them feelswrongon a visceral level, and Sothis comments about it too.It's the anomaly of it all that drives Byleth to choose the Black Eagles.Prompt and extended warnings in author notes.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Claude von Riegan
Series: 3H Kinkmeme Fills [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148606
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	double-headed eagle

**Author's Note:**

> warning: theres some twsitd-related torture-like stuff referred to in the sections that are entirely crossed out. its not graphic, but theres some discussion of procedures and use of restraints, and overall harm to children. also warnings for graphic violence (section that starts with "Byleth is trapped"). if you decide to skip any of these sections, the things that were discussed will be explained nongraphically in the endnote, so please take care of yourselves
> 
> prompt in end notes

Byleth is surprised to meet Dimitri von Hresvelg.

Edelgard on her own was a powerful presence, a charismatic force. The Hresvelg siblings together, however, are unnerving, to say the least. White hair, ever-present gloves and gauntlets, identical polite smiles. Aloof, judgmental, often near each other like their survival depends on it. Something about them feels _wrong_ on a visceral level, and Sothis comments about it too.

It's the anomaly of it all that drives Byleth to choose the Black Eagles.

\---

"Well?" Dimitri asks as Edelgard lets him into her room and activates the Silence glyphs, "did it work?"

"No!" She throws herself onto her bed.

"So your bandits didn't scare them off?"

"They hired someone else!"

Dimitri's eyes go wide as he sits at her desk chair. "Was it Alois?"

Edelgard shakes her head. "Some mercenary. Hubert says they're known as the Ashen Demon, but the real reason they got hired is because they're Jeralt the Blade Breaker's child."

"Jeralt the Blade Breaker? Is he here too?"

"Yes."

"But why would his child be hired? If they're really just some mercenary---"

"I don't presume to know what goes through that false prophet's mind!"

Dimitri appears to sit on this information while Edelgard calms down. "Just checking, but is there no chance we can scare the new teacher off as well and get Jeritza hired as planned?"

"No."

"Then what do we do?"

Edelgard sighs deeply. "We improvise."

"But how are we going to get into the Holy Mausoleum---"

"Arundel and the Western Church."

Dimitri visibly swallows back discomfort. "I truly wish you would cease involving _them_."

They're going to have this argument again, aren't they? "It is a necessary evil. First we must defang the Church and---"

"--- _and dismantle its Crest-based social structure_ ," Dimitri echoes. "Yes, I'm aware. I helped draft your manifesto. Surely we can defeat the Agarthans as well?"

"Not with a single army."

"Maybe we can convince Claude or Felix to pledge their nations to our cause. Or even seek assistance from Brigid. Almyra. We don't have to tear the continent apart first."

"You're too much of a pacifist."

He snorts. "Our siblings hound me for the heads of their murderers."

...Fuck. "They're getting louder again?"

He breaks eye contact, shy. "Only a little bit. I'll tell you if they get worse."

"You'd better."

"I will," he promises.

Edelgard sighs and turns over so she's laying on her back. "At any rate, the new professor will announce which class they'll be leading tomorrow morning."

"Maybe they'll be a potential ally."

Edelgard snorts. "Oh, Dimitri. You always were the optimist of the two of us."

Dimitri laughs politely. "That is not a very high bar."

\---

"Hey, Princess!"

Edelgard looks up from her lunch. "Can I help you?"

Claude sits down with an easy smile, entirely ignoring Hubert glowering next to her. "Any chance I can snag Dimitri?"

Edelgard is immediately suspicious. "He's single, if that's what you're asking."

Claude laughs --- actually laughs, not something polite and calculated. "Aw, man, now what I'm about to say's going to sound like a euphemism. No, I'm not asking permission to court your precious baby brother. I want a lancer."

Hmm. That's even more dangerous. "What about Leonie or Lorenz?"

"Bows and magic, I'm afraid."

"Then why not bother the Blue Lions? The Kingdom is well known for its lancefaire."

Claude raises an eyebrow. "They have six students. You have nine. What sounds more reasonable?"

"Why Dimitri?"

"Because he's better than Ferdinand."

Edelgard can't help but crack a smile. "Don't let Ferdinand hear you say that. But to answer your question: ignoring that he's my brother, why would I simply give up my best lancer?"

Claude seems more than prepared for the question. "Because I'll trade you for Lysithea. Best mage in the school, and---" his eyes light up, and Edelgard knows she will hate the next thing that comes out of his mouth--- "you'd be trading one kid with white hair for another, so it's not like you'll notice the difference. Which, by the way? Please tell me what bleach you use. You're not fooling me that it's natural, and I've been _dyeing_ to try out a color like that."

Hubert starts to cast something, and Edelgard stops him with a slight shake of her head. Judging by Claude's smile, the gesture is not lost on him.

"Pun in bad taste?"

"Atrocious," Edelgard confirms, even though she's fairly sure that Claude knows exactly what she's reacting to. "And leave my brother alone."

"How about Ferdinand?"

"Absolutely not."

Claude shrugs and gets up. "Worth a shot. I'm going to see if Manuela's rack is a good enough incentive to snag Sylvain."

" _Shall I take care of him, milady?_ " Hubert asks in coded language after he's gone.

" _No_ ," Edelgard says. " _If your spies are correct, we'd risk incurring the wrath of two countries. Besides, if he's digging into things, there's a chance he'll find out what we want to expose._ "

" _You think he could be an ally?_ "

Potentially. In exchange for waiting just a bit longer to fight back against the Agarthans, she promised Dimitri to try to recruit as many allies as she could. She intends to keep her word. " _Just keep close tabs on him in the meantime._ "

Hubert nods in assent. "Of course, Lady Edelgard."

\---

~~The days were always dark there.~~

~~Edelgard and Dimitri were the first, she thinks. They were captured together, and the rest all came in due time as the horrible mages found their hiding spots across the continent. Edelgard was weak and small and battered, but she survived. Even as the others withered away around her. Even as she held her siblings through their dying breaths.~~

~~No matter what, she survived.~~

~~The last one to be tested was Dimitri, and he was almost an afterthought at that point. Edelgard already had the Crest of Flames and had stabilized, and the Agarthans already told her what their vision for her was. Dimitri was a loose end, a free test subject, a surprise partial success, a nuisance.~~

~~_A minor Crest of Flames? Shit, so we can't get rid of him after all. Ugh. Make sure you gag him before the next tests if he still won't shut up about the fucking ghosts._ ~~

~~In the end, Edelgard became the heir, the Agarthans' hope; and Dimitri the spare, the young last resort.~~

~~(Somewhere, some forgotten part of her is amused by the irony, but she cannot for the life of her figure out _why_.)~~

\---

"You're the prince of Faerghus."

Dimitri startles so hard he destroys his training lance. Damn. "Pardon me, Felix. You caught me unawares. Can I help you?"

Felix pouts, and the gesture is so childish that even his House Leader regalia does not stop him from looking undignified. "I said you're the prince of Faerghus."

Dimitri smiles politely the way he and El practiced every night since they were let go. "Are you certain you are not mistaking me for someone else?"

In his experience, anyone asking too many questions will eventually become a threat. He will not let his guard down this time.

"I _know_ you," Felix snaps. "The name you picked for yourself is Dimitri Alexandre. You love sweets and cheese. Glenn used to read your favorite knight stories to you all the time. You once broke a sword by just swinging it. You grew up in Fhirdiad, and you're two months older than me."

The irksome thing is that the information sounds _right_ somewhere deep in his core. That _is_ what he named himself, he does vaguely remember liking foods like that, he likes tales of chivalry, he's broken many weapons barehanded, he _did_ grow up in Fhirdiad, and he's always felt closer to El's age than not.

But that would mean El is six months older than him, and this is simply impossible for siblings who share the same mother. Besides, even if he did grow up in Fhirdiad, and even if he does vaguely remember having a friend (two of them?) somewhat like Felix, that doesn't mean that he's the damned _prince_.

In fact, if they actually were friends at one point growing up, that's likely where Felix would have learned all this information about him. How unchivalrous of him to try to use it against Dimitri like this.

"You're the king's son," Felix says, like he's explaining to a small child, "and I'm your retainer."

Dimitri loses his composure, and a laugh slips out unfiltered. Felix bristles like an affronted cat.

"My apologies, Felix, but didn't your prince die four years ago? I'm flattered that you want me to join the Blue Lions, but there's no need for theatrics."

"For fuck's sake, Dimitri! You have a minor Crest of Blaiddyd!"

He takes a breath. He's never been able to deal with conflict the way that El does, especially when someone's poking at a sore spot like this, but he manages not to lash out. "You know fully well that I am the illegitimate child of an Imperial consort, and King Lambert was a notably faithful man. The Duke Regent, on the other hand, has been... obvious in his proclivities for several decades now. Surely you can put two and two together? Besides, when _my true father_ the Emperor adopted me, any claim my Crest might have given me to the Kingdom's throne was forfeit." He chuckles humorlessly for effect. "Honestly, Felix, at this point I'm surprised I'm the only bastard to present with a Crest."

Felix huffs. "This conversation isn't over. And I don't care how much your sister threatened to _destroy anyone who so much as harms a hair on your head_ , I'm getting answers from you."

Oh, joy. "Of course."

"Now spar with me."

Dimitri resists the urge to roll his eyes and picks up another training lance. "As you wish."

\---

~~At some point near the beginning of it all, they came in to take blood _from_ Dimitri. He had been given some chemical that kept him barely awake earlier that day, and he didn't even react to them picking him up and taking him away. Edelgard was terrified, the way she had always been terrified every time they took one of her siblings away, and she was surprised that he was returned so quickly later with only a small bandage over his elbow, saying something delirious about his Crest and "a double."~~

~~Well, he wasn't wrong, per se, but Edelgard still isn't sure why they took blood from him so early.~~

\---

Edelgard, Dimitri, and Hubert are training together when Ashe comes in. It's been nearly a month since Lonato was sacrificed, and Edelgard feels horrible for making Ashe an orphan yet again.

But she's so close to breaking into the Holy Mausoleum and opening Saint Seiros' empty tomb and exposing once and for all that the church is based on a foundation of lies.

"Hello," Ashe says, dejected.

Dimitri immediately walks over in greeting and sympathy. "Good morning, Ashe. How are you? Are your siblings doing well?"

Ashe perks up a little at the mention of his siblings (truly, Dimitri has always been good at this part of leadership), and he's about to answer when there's the sound of hysterical screaming.

_Bernadetta._

Edelgard and Hubert make eye contact and prepare to deal with whatever has upset her this time.

Ingrid kicks the doors open, a terrified Bernie thrown over her shoulder.

"Please let me go! I don't want to do this! Someone help me!"

"Stop struggling," Ingrid says, and locks the doors behind her.

"Let her go," Edelgard commands.

Ingrid turns around, furious. "No. She needs to train, just like everyone else."

"Last I checked, she's in my class, not yours."

Ingrid scoffs. "Then you need to instill some diligence in your classmates. You never know when someone might attack."

It's a half-baked threat at worst, but Hubert and Dimitri both subtly move in front of her like Ingrid is a sworn enemy.

It's funny, really. This is the only time those two ever agree.

Hubert starts drawing on the ambient magic to prepare to cast a spell.

Dimitri, however, draws himself to his full height. "Was that a threat?"

Ingrid snaps to attention automatically. She probably doesn't even realize she's doing it. "Your Highness---"

"Oh, so you address me with respect, and not my sister?" He scoffs. 

"You're Prince Dimitri of Faerghus."

Edelgard watches Dimitri's annoyed posturing shift into genuine anger. "No, I am not, and don't think that this will be able to distract from the issue at hand. You do not have the right to kidnap people on a whim, and if you value your limbs, you will not _dare_ to threaten my sister again."

Ingrid looks at Dimitri, Edelgard, and Hubert in turn, and seems to realize she's surrounded.

Edelgard makes eye contact with Ingrid. "Set Bernadetta down. _Now_."

She does, and Bernie makes a break for it.

Edelgard will have to check on her later.

Ingrid crosses her arms. "Now what?"

"Leave," Dimitri commands.

Ingrid complies.

"Wow," Ashe says, and Edelgard is horrified that she forgot he was here.

"I apologize for my harshness," she says.

Ashe shakes his head. "Don't. It's nice to see someone standing up for the weak. And, um, if it's not too forward of me, would you mind terribly if I joined the Black Eagles?"

Edelgard smiles. "We would be glad to have you."

\---

"El?"

"Yes, Dimitri?"

He forces himself to look away from the angry ghosts of their siblings. "It's getting worse."

Edelgard inhales sharply and puts down her quill. "Okay. Let's figure this out together."

\---

"Sylvain."

"Yeah?"

The two of them are sitting in the Abyss library late at night, poring over banned historical tomes. Dimitri looks around to make sure they're alone.

"Felix insists he remembers me from some point in his childhood. You grew up with him, did you not?"

"Yeah," Sylvain says, looking at him curiously.

"Do you remember ever meeting me?"

"Yes."

"And do you believe I am the lost prince?"

Sylvain takes a very long time to consider the question. "No. I don't."

Dimitri really wishes his sister were here; she's always been so much better at telling when people are lying.

Sylvain chuckles awkwardly. "You don't believe me. Fair enough. I wouldn't believe me either, to be honest. I remember playing with you and Felix and Glenn and Ingrid as kids, but it's in flashes. Fragments. It's easier to think about when something reminds me of it, and all I can remember about _you_ is just.... It's not that much, really. Running around the Fhirdiad gardens. Having a picnic in Itha. Falling into some creek in Fraldarius. I don't know. Maybe I hit my head a couple times too many growing up or something. Heh."

Dimitri remembers how shaky Sylvain was at Conand Tower and decides to repay vulnerability with vulnerability. "I can empathize with your situation. Ah. Perhaps empathize is not quite the word. Edelgard was never an aggressor," he quickly amends, and Sylvain is _terrified_. Dimitri scrambles to fix the situation. "I do not wish to discuss the details, but suffice it to say that truly, I understand the feeling. I do not remember much of my childhood either."

Sylvain searches his face for... something, and whatever he finds, it passes muster.

"You're more perceptive than I gave you credit for, Your Highness."

"Most people tell me the opposite."

They look at each other, feeling the kind of sickly-warm camaraderie that is only recognized in a fellow survivor of childhood violence.

Sylvain smiles thinly. "Let's get back to work."

It's almost a shame that Felix treated him like a good-for-nothing whore, Dimitri thinks to himself. _Almost_ a shame, because that's probably why Sylvain was so eager to join the Black Eagles and prove himself for once.

Charisma, intelligence, strategic aptitude, a hatred for Crests.

And if he's unsure whether Dimitri's the Prince of Faerghus, then fealty is less likely to get in the way of personal loyalty.

El was right. He'll make a fine general for the Imperial army.

\---

Remire has Edelgard on edge.

It has Agarthan fingerprints all over it, but she cannot, for the life of her, figure out how or why.

(After all, she is still only a tool to them.)

"Heya, Princess," Claude says gently.

She startles anyway. "Claude."

"Bit chilly tonight," he observes, sidling up next to her on the Star Terrace. "I'm not quite sure how you manage. Isn't Hresvelg a desert or something?"

"Coastal sage scrub," she corrects. "You're thinking of Enbarr."

He nods nonchalantly. "So I am."

They stand together in silence. It's not particularly comfortable.

"Claude, why are you here?"

He's quiet for a moment, gazing up at the stars. "You stole half my class, you know. At first I thought it was the Professor, but I've started to doubt that a little recently."

For once, she's glad that Hubert is nowhere nearby. "How so?"

"I think it might be you." He lets that set in for a moment. "You have some kind of vision. I know it's related to Crests somehow because you got Lysithea and Marianne to follow you, but I just can't for the life of me figure out exactly what or how, because Linhardt never asked to transfer out. I think it also has to be related to nobility, because the three Lions you got were either commoners or forced to kill family members by the Church, or both. Honestly, I would've just assumed it was something about the Church, but if it were as simple as that, I don't think you would have managed to snag Mercedes. Now here's the thing," he says, and Edelgard is extremely aware of how close he's gotten.

It's _thrilling_.

She turns to face him directly, meeting the unspoken challenge in his eyes. "Yes?"

"I've got goals of my own. Things I want to change once I come to power. And I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not the only one with these goals, or that maybe our goals overlap a little. So, Edelgard, you've got the future Sovereign Duke of Leicester with his full attention on you. Or, heh, wait, nah. That's too much pressure."

Good for him, picking up on her discomfort so quickly when she didn't even break composure. He will either make a truly dangerous enemy or an invaluable ally.

"Let's try that again. Hey, Your Highness. I'm a Golden Deer, and I'm curious about what my fellow fawns see in you. Recruit me to the Black Eagles?"

Sometimes, she's learned, you just have to trust people.

She tells him... almost everything. The church's lies, the Agarthans, her plans for the future.

It's nearly dawn by the time she's done.

Claude smiles. It's the first she's seen a genuine one from him.

"Turns out our plans aren't that different after all."

\---

~~The thing about surviving what Edelgard survived is that you learn certain things about yourself that you truly never wanted to know.~~

~~The taste of helplessness, familiarized.~~

~~Whether you fight, flee, freeze, or appease when fear grips you so hard you can't think.~~

~~What it feels like, in your very bones, to reach your limit.~~

~~Edelgard was one of the youngest of her siblings. She never had to be strong. So when push came to shove, she bent. Like a tree branch, she cracked and bowed and buckled until she could barely breathe, until she was twisted into what the Agarthans wanted her to be. That's why they put all their hopes on her, she thinks. From the outside, it looks like she was molded into shape.~~

~~(She was not. She will never, ever, lose her strength of will.)~~

~~But for all that she is indomitable, Edelgard is not invulnerable.~~

~~She may not fall apart, but she _breaks_.~~

~~Dimitri, however, has always been strong. He always stood up to their captors, put himself in front of the others like a shield, tried his best to find and cling to some sense of justice. If Edelgard is a tree, easily whipped around by wind, Dimitri is a fortress, steadfast in a storm. Dimitri does not break.~~

~~He _shatters_.~~

\---

Byleth is trapped in Zaharas for less than a heartbeat when Dimitri pushes his way to the front of the group.

"I will cut you to shreds," he snarls, throwing his lance at Solon and missing by a hair's breadth. It cracks a tree open where it lands across the clearing.

"Dima, wait!" Edelgard warns as she sprints over to stop him.

If he kills Solon, the Agarthans will think him too dangerous to keep alive.

 _She cannot afford to lose her last sibling_.

"Foolish beast, what can you hope to do against me?"

"I will take your head from your shoulders---" Edelgard tackles him around the middle to try to hold him back--- "and hang it from the gates of Enbarr!"

Solon laughs. "Grand promises from a failed experiment."

Someone --- _Lysithea_ \--- gasps in horror.

"No one else," Dimitri vows, grappling his way out of Edelgard's grip and getting up.

Solon casts Banshee Θ, and Dimitri barely stays upright as the spell bubbles up from the floor and screeches to life, pummeling him again and again and again.

Edelgard scrambles to her feet.

"Nobody else."

Dimitri makes a mad dash, grabs Solon by the face, and---

Edelgard can't say she's surprised, given Dimitri's excessive strength, but that's still the first time she's watched someone crush a living person's skull with their bare hands.

Somewhere behind her, Linhardt starts hyperventilating.

Edelgard walks up to her brother and holds out a vulnerary.

"You will not take anyone else from us," he whispers to the mangled corpse, face spattered with blood.

As if on cue, the sky splits open and Byleth walks out.

\---

It's the night before the coronation, and El is _shaking_.

"Hey," Dimitri says, putting aside the Flame Emperor armor from where he was checking it for weaknesses.

She looks up at him. "What if nobody follows us?"

This is concerning enough that Dimitri moves to sit on the bed next to El, and puts an arm around her shoulders. "What do you mean?"

She leans into him. "What if I miscalculated? What if they see that I'm the Flame Emperor and are so disgusted they abandon us?"

"Who? Our classmates?"

She nods, then shakes her head. "Byleth."

 _Ah_. "That does present a problem. I do feel that, should it come to this, many of our classmates would side with Byleth in a heartbeat."

"Precisely. And there's nothing we can do about it."

Dimitri hums and shifts so that he's giving his sister a proper hug. She sinks into it. "Would you like to talk through it?"

She nods.

"Should the worst come to pass, Hubert and I will always remain by your side."

"Yes, I know that, Dimitri."

He snorts. "Good. Now, moving to the others. Claude agreed to ally himself with our cause independently of Byleth, and he has given us no reason to doubt his word."

She hums dismissively.

"Lysithea knows that the three of us have something truly horrible in common, and Ashe has no reason to ally himself with the church that killed his second family."

She hums again, as if considering it.

"Dorothea and Sylvain are about ready to destroy the Crest-based nobility system with their bare hands, and Marianne has no great love of Crests in and of themselves. Manuela and Hanneman adore you, and Shamir holds no loyalty to a Church she doesn't believe in."

She sighs. "You cannot make up reasons for everyone."

He nods. "I will grant that there are unknowns. Petra may distance herself from Fódlan the instant we restore Brigid's independence. Ferdinand has always thought me too emotional a potential ruler and sought to prove himself your superior in everything, and after we strip his family of power, there is no way to tell where his allegiance may lie. Ignatz may oppose a war against the Church on ideological principle, and while I do not believe Mercedes would give up Emile after searching for so long, we cannot assume that a holy woman would fight against her Church. Alois and Leonie may ally with Byleth because of their connection to Jeralt. Linhardt is a wild card, and Caspar would follow him to the ends of the earth. Bernadetta may wish to hide herself away instead of fight. Raphael has his family to think of first. But," he says, poking his sister in the cheek to annoy her out of her melancholy, "this is a worst case scenario. If the Professor decides to side with our cause, I think it far more likely that everyone in our class will remain with us. And, if Alliance politics are as predicted, we may even have Lorenz side with us during the war itself."

El breaks the hug to ruffle Dimitri's hair. He resists commenting that for once she doesn't have to stretch to reach his head. 

"Thanks, Dima."

"Anytime, El."

\---

In the end, Byleth sides with their students. 

The coup is successful, the coronation unopposed, the war effort efficiently mobilized.

The Flame Emperor and the Tempest Prince storm Garreg Mach together, flanked by their classmates.

It is the first time in a very long time that the siblings allow themselves to _hope_.

**Author's Note:**

> finally de-anoning to post my kinkmeme fills here
> 
> content endnotes: in the first two crossed-out sections, edelgard describes some of her experiences with twsitd. it is revealed that she and dimitri were captured together, that dimitri has the minor crest of flames, and that blood was taken from him early in their captivity. taken together, these sections hint that the agarthans made a crest-bearing double of dimitri. this is why felix does not correct dimitri when he says that the prince of faerghus died at duscur. the third crossed-out section discusses edelgards resilience and dimitris lack thereof. it is direct foreshadowing for the next section. if you skipped the section with graphic violence, dimitri snaps a little and kills solon very similarly to the azure moon holy tomb cutscene
> 
> Prompt:
> 
> Lets take the whole Blue Lion Edelgard concept and turn it around completely. Lets do it where Edelgard is not the only one of her siblings to survive TWSITD. Her half-brother Dimitri does too. How he got there I’ll leave up to the authors. (Maybe Patricia thought to spare him from the massacre she knew was coming and instead found the being that had replaced her brother could not be trusted) In either case two children emerge from that hell, bound together as siblings from the trauma they have shared. They know the world needs to change and people need to pay for their crimes.
> 
> Officially Dimitri is presented as Edelgard’s illegitimate half-brother on through her mother. Its what the world is told when he follows his sister to Garregh Mach, as they begin preparing to put their plans in motion.
> 
> Optional Details:  
> ~Thanks to foggy memories, both of them legitimately think they are half siblings by blood. (They both called the same woman “mother” after all.)
> 
> ~Dimitri and Edelgard disagree on which of their enemies is the bigger threat. Dimitri insists that the Church is of secondary importance and that TWSITD are the greatest enemy and should be eliminated first. He follows Edelgard’s lead, but its also very clear that he’s going to turn on TWSITD the moment he sees a single advantage in doing so.
> 
> ~Hubert and Dimitri don’t always agree, except when it comes to keeping threats away from Edelgard. Being cornered by one of them is bad enough, being flanked by both of them can be utterly terrifying. Bonus if Edelgard has warned people what will happen if they fuck with her brother.
> 
> ~Felix, Sylvain and Ingrid recognize Dimitri immediately. Dimitri however doesn’t recognize them. He remembers he had these childhood friends, but time and experimentation has made his memories foggy and he doesn’t recognize them.


End file.
